


vision and touch

by strangesaturday



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Art History, Data Has Android Emotions, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Klingon Poetry, M/M, Softness, Technobabble, Wire Play, again only implied, always always, let's talk about selfhood babey, see the world in bold geordi-vision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesaturday/pseuds/strangesaturday
Summary: Geordi shares a secret. Data makes several discoveries. They make marks on each other.An infrared look at creation, revision, and bodies.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge
Comments: 22
Kudos: 94





	vision and touch

**Author's Note:**

> The wonderful [fire_ash_rebirth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_ash_rebirth/pseuds/fire_ash_rebirth) recorded [a podfic of this,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29443152) if you'd like to listen along! Thanks, fire_ash_rebirth! <3

Beginning in the 20th century, Terran conservators used infrared reflectography to reveal hidden layers in the canvases of paintings. A self-portrait was discovered underneath Artemsia Gentileschi’s _Saint Catherine of Alexandria,_ a man with a bow-tie in Picasso’s _The Blue Room._ 24th century technologies revealed an even greater level of detail. When he was seventeen, in a museum on Sol I, Geordi had stood before a replicated _Mona Lisa_ and seen the lead underdrawing beneath: a draft contained within the finished product.

When he was certain of the solidity of their friendship, he let Data in on a deep secret.

“You’re the only person I’d ever share this with: you know Ensign Foxwell? She wears a harness made out of chain, every single day, under her uniform.”

“Is it a cultural or religious observance?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Data’s eyes were very wide.

“You gotta believe me,” Geordi said, “I don’t look for things like this, I just _see_ them. Sometimes I’m using a particular VISOR frequency and something… _unexpected_ pops up.”

The android nodded with conspiratorial gravity. “I understand.”

In this way, Geordi initiated Data in the private lives people conduct beneath their clothes: piercings and adornments, implants and augmentations, garments of worship and garments of pleasure.

The first time they had sex they dared not linger, neither convinced there would be a second time. But there was a second time, and with the imperative to swallow each other whole lessened, Data discovered Geordi led a secret life, too. It was the closest view he had ever been afforded of organic skin, and he pored over the variation in texture and tone, the near-invisible scars, fine body hairs, scrapes and moles like a cartographer in a 1.7 meter country. He witnessed the chill of a limb left outside of the covers, discovered the warmth trapped between thighs.

And the tattoo: the snarling head of a targ on the back of Geordi’s left shoulder. He’d gotten it his second year at the Academy, a regrettable decision. When Data asked why he didn’t have it removed he admitted with embarrassment that until Data brought it up, he’d forgotten about it entirely. (He remembered the last conference he attended, how he swam blissfully unaware in the hotel pool, and cringed.)

Data named the targ D'Kahla after the Klingon poetess. He spoke to her, complimented her tusks and bold lines. He recited her own poetry to her in the shower. He traced her contours as Geordi fell asleep.

On the day D'Kahla was to be lasered away, he gave her a kiss goodbye. Later, he stroked the delicate regenerated skin with the lightest touch.

_“jIHvaD 'umbe'nIS,”_ he whispered. _Though you have gone from me, you are with me still._

Data possessed secrets as well, or rather, contained them. Geordi was by then very familiar with his inner and outer workings, but when Data invited him to open his body for the first time off Starfleet record, he felt as fumbling and inexperienced as the teenager who had caught a clandestine glimpse of da Vinci’s masterpiece.

Afterward, he lay with his arms folded on Data’s stomach and ran a fingernail along a scratch on the curved interior of his thoracic casing.

“He left so many traces inside you.”

“Do they upset you?”

“No… it’s just strange to see the physical evidence of your creation. The notes, the witness marks. Sometimes I think I can tell exactly what he was thinking. Exactly what failed and how he fixed it. Other times—” Geordi shook his head.

Data’s lungs inflated and deflated with soothing regularity. “What would you have left, had you been present at my creation?”

“Oh, god. I have no idea.” Geordi knew what he wished _Soong_ had left. Some instructions would have been nice, for starters. But that’s not what Data had asked.

Because he was no D'Kahla, he settled on a simple, straight-forward message:

“‘Geordi La Forge loves this leg.’”

“‘This leg?’”

“Yeah. I'd put it right here.” He indicated an exposed stretch of silicone thigh muscle. “Something you could replace, if you wanted.”

“Very courteous. Though, do you not love the rest of me, as well?”

“That’s implied.”

“I see.” Data reached over and produced a stylus from the night stand. “Please, proceed.”

Geordi formed each letter slowly, carefully, like a meditation.

He woke up with the shape of Data’s subproccessor array imprinted on the flesh of his forearm. As they sat in the conference room listening to the morning briefing, Data trailed a finger up his sleeve, and felt the ridges.

**Author's Note:**

> d'kahla is klingon sappho. harold she's lesbians!! if you translate that chunk of pIqaD back into english it will come out super wrong smh... klingon does not have enough words
> 
> kind of a short, weird one, right? i hope you enjoyed it, anyway.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ strangesaturday
> 
> join the [daforge discord server!](https://discord.gg/qMAGw5BqXg) we're all just soft nerds so don't be shy. (18+ only, please)


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